“Hmm, I shall grant you a reward, then. Tell me if there is anything you desire.”
“A reward?”
His granddaughter looked up at him with wide, round eyes. Danmok Cheongi had just been thinking about the lowborn child his granddaughter seemed fond of lately.
He had heard it was a boy who did odd jobs following the merchant who supplied food ingredients. Since the boy was an orphan with nowhere to go, it wouldn’t be a bad idea to bring him into the family early and raise him as his granddaughter’s person.
“Then I really want to learn martial arts now!”
*
This was Ryeon’s core topic of interest recently. It was a problem directly connected to her lifeline, and Danmok Cheongi’s remaining life depended on it as well.
However, simply pushing into Danmok Cheongi would be like pouring seawater into a small spring he had carefully tended. In other words, it would ruin everything.
While Ryeon was racking her brain for a method, Danmok Cheongi once again lowered a rope for her.
‘Tea Ceremony!’
Ryeon, who had greatly regretted making bitter and hard sticky rice cakes, saw the tea ceremony as a cloud path leading up to the realm of immortals.
From thinking of the tea leaves, wetting them with warm water, to gently shaking the —she could filter in step by step at every stage. On top of that, the recipient would drink it right there and then. Could it get any better than this?
Perhaps thanks to that, Ryeon’s complexion and mood had improved significantly of late. She was using , her grandfather was gradually recovering; it couldn’t be better.
The only problem, if there was one, was that she still couldn’t learn martial arts.
‘I thought he would agree if I asked when his heart had softened a bit.’
The situation of the family was difficult to call good, even as empty praise.
Honestly speaking, even to her eyes, it looked precarious. Although the manor was huge, there were many unused spaces and few people, leaving desolate corners everywhere.
Did they say a rich family lasts three generations even after ruin? It seemed the family was holding on solely thanks to that saying.
‘The problem is that I am that very last third generation.’
If she didn’t revive the family as soon as possible, they would truly go bankrupt with nothing left. Wasn’t that the future she had seen?
It might be easier to manage the remaining assets if they sold the current manor and moved to a smaller place, but clearing out this place, which held the family’s full history, would mean completely giving up on a resurgence, so that wasn’t an option either.
Her aunt and acting head of the family, Danmok Hyeonyo, seemed to be struggling with something in Henan Province where the Murim Alliance was located, but there was a limit to reviving the family fortune by borrowing other people’s hands.
So, she thought that if she, the eldest grandchild, said she wanted to learn something, he would immediately agree.
‘I didn’t expect him to tell me to master writing first.’
Well, this was technically learning something. Although she already knew it all…….
However, she couldn’t say she already knew all the characters, so Ryeon ended up getting caught by her uncle, Danmok Hyeonu, who had quit his closed-door training a while ago, and was stuck learning to read and write.
“The chicken looks weird.”
“It doesn’t look weird, it looks cool…… handsome.”
Ryeon glanced at Hwaryun, who was crouching next to her watching the chicken.
This boy still looked like a small beast, but his complexion had improved compared to when they first met.
It was thanks to her consistently feeding him rice balls or dumplings whenever they met like this.
In fact, Ryeon had been half-teary, worried that Hwaryun might leave just like that and she would never see him again, so she had asked her nanny to find him and check if he was doing well.
The nanny, Nanny Jang, worried that Ryeon was paying too much attention to a child of unclear origin, but fearing Ryeon might actually cry, she hurriedly found out where Hwaryun was staying.
‘How did he end up going from Hangzhou all the way to the Heavenly Mountains? How can I get a little closer to him and ask him to join the family?’
“Isn’t this basically a Phoenix?”
Ryeon, who had been lost in various thoughts, smiled slightly at Hwaryun’s words.
Sometimes it sent a chill down her spine to think this kid was the future of the , but when she saw his innocent side—like talking about a Phoenix just because she gave him a playful knuckle rap and acted like a big sister—he was also cute.
“No. It’s called a Silkie chicken. It’s a chicken that’s black even down to its bones. Right, Heukwol?”
The jet-black chicken wandering aloofly inside the coop looked at her and bobbed its head once.
However, a red gleam swirled over its pitch-black eyes, making it look exceptionally intelligent, and warm red energy seemed to shimmer at the tips of its feathers.
‘It definitely wasn’t like that at first, though…….’
“No matter how I look at it, the chicken is weird.”
Hwaryun narrowed his eyes and looked back and forth between the and Ryeon.
Ryeon pinched the cheeky Hwaryun’s cheek once before letting go, then took a rice ball out of her bosom.
“Just eat this, little kid.”
“The Young Lady is a little kid too.”
Hwaryun had listened closely to Nanny Jang calling Ryeon ‘Young Lady, Young Lady’ by her side, and soon started calling her that quite often.
The words that followed weren’t exactly polite, but Ryeon didn’t wish for that anyway.
Since Hwaryun wouldn’t eat the rice ball if she just gave it to him, Ryeon split it in half, then split the remainder in half again and shoved it into Hwaryun’s mouth.
While doing so, she brought up the topic she had been thinking about.
“Ryuna. Do you know how to read?”
“What about you, Young Lady? Do you know?”
“You really never answer and just ask back.”
“Where would I learn to read?”
Ryeon grumbled inwardly.
“Really? Then do you want to learn with me? I don’t know how to read yet either.”
“Why doesn’t the Young Lady know…….”
The boy, who seemed about to ask something, blurred the end of his sentence. Ryeon touched her cheek with a slightly embarrassed expression.
The reason the eldest grandchild of a prestigious family didn’t know a single character until she was eight was that she had been bedridden the whole time and had only just recovered her senses.
“I decided to learn from my Uncle, so let’s do it together. We’ll learn in the evening. Uncle said it was fine too!”
Hwaryun looked at her with a face that said he couldn’t understand, but Ryeon didn’t listen to his answer and kept shoving the rice ball into his mouth. Hwaryun waved his hand to dodge the rice ball.
“I don’t want to, though?”
“Why?”
“What would I use it for if I learned to read?”
Ryeon suddenly had nothing to say, so she just kept shoving rice balls into his mouth.
“Well…… that way, later when you grow up, huh? You can read martial arts manuals and such. This big sister will teach you everything.”
Hwaryun chewed the rice ball thoroughly, swallowed, and said,
“I’m not going to learn martial arts, though?”
Ryeon heard something so bewildering that she stared at Hwaryun with eyes as wide as saucers.
“What? Why?”
Even when Ryeon asked back in confusion, Hwaryun replied nonchalantly.
“Because in a family like this, no matter how well you do, they say you just end up cleaning up after the young masters and ladies.”
“……!”
Ryeon wanted to say that wasn’t necessarily true, but she couldn’t bring herself to speak. Because what he said wasn’t entirely wrong.
‘Ah! Is that why Ryuna joined the ?’
Because there, the strongest person can sweep everything away without walking on eggshells?
Her heart sank again at that thought. Although, it did seem like his personality suited that!
‘No!’
“T-Then, do you know the Mount Hua Sect in Shaanxi Province, not a Murim Clan? That place is a sect, not a family. If you have the skill! Anyone can become the Sect Leader regardless of origin! It’s a really cool…….”
“Shaanxi Province is too far from here.”
“Hey, you…….”
Ryeon couldn’t bring herself to shout that out loud.
“T-Then where do you want to learn martial arts?”
“It’s not like I can learn just because I want to, is it?”
“No, let’s just assume you can.”
Didn’t people usually make absurd hopes or wishes when they were young? Like imagining living in a ninety-nine room mansion?
But Hwaryun seemed to have absolutely no interest in such things.
“If you learn sword fighting, what is there but dying? It’s best to live far away from things like that.”
Ryeon wore an expression of disbelief.
Who on earth is this pessimist?
‘Was Cheon Hwaryun like this when he was young? What on earth did a kid like this eat wrongly to become the of the ?’
Could it be that he was such an overflowing genius that he just did it moderately when an opportunity coincidentally arose, and ended up becoming the ? that would be aggravating in its own right. Completely unaware of Ryeon’s thoughts, Hwaryun held onto Ryeon and continued speaking.
“Young Lady, you shouldn’t do that kind of thing either.”
It was a very mature voice for a boy two years younger than her. Ryeon, looking at him with a flustered expression, attempted to persuade him again.
“S-Still…… shouldn’t we have a way to protect ourselves when those wicked guys attack?”
‘Let’s just walk the White Path once in this life! Please! Cheon Hwaryun!’
But at those words, a mischievous smile clearly appeared on Hwaryun’s face instead.
“Then the cool White Path Murim lords will save us against the wicked .”
It was a remark laced with a slight cynicism toward the entire Murim world. Ryeon simply moved her lips silently.
“No, but, still, if you know how to read…… you can write letters too.”
“You need paper to write.”
“If you know how to read, you can earn money to buy paper. You can buy food, and later you can even buy a house.”
“Why are you trying to teach me to read like this?”
Ryeon was momentarily speechless.
Why, you ask?
“That is…….”
